


Arcane Deflection

by Settiai



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, Community: femslashex, F/F, First Kiss, Huddling For Warmth, One Shot, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27444271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/pseuds/Settiai
Summary: Scenes from a romance in the making.
Relationships: Dagna/Lace Harding
Comments: 12
Kudos: 14
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2020





	Arcane Deflection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/gifts).



Lace Harding didn't know exactly what she'd been expecting when the Nightingale had asked her to take over escort duty for a new asset on the last leg of a journey to Skyhold. She'd heard the word "arcanist," and she'd immediately assumed it would be some stodgy old human or maybe some stodgy old elf or perhaps a stodgy old...

... well, the point of the matter was, she'd been expecting someone stodgy and old and most likely significantly taller than her. Not to mention a mage. She'd heard "arcanist" and immediately thought "mage," for what she liked to think were obvious reasons. So it had been a bit of a surprise when some of Nightingale's agents from the Free Marches had stepped off their ship in Jader with another dwarf trailing behind them.

Whether it was a good surprise or a bad one remained to be seen. But that was fairly normal for almost everything involving the Inquisition, from Lace's experience.

The people who tended to get drawn into joining them weren’t usually the boring type.

"Are you sure you don't want a weapon of some kind?" Lace asked for the third or fourth time since she'd taken over escort duty the day before. "I have a couple of spare daggers that you can use." She gave the stew cooking over the campfire another stir. "I know everything's been fine so far, but it's not always the safest trip. We might run into some trouble once we get further inland."

The arcanist – "call me Dagna!" she'd said, and Lace really needed to start thinking of her that way or she was going to slip up when speaking to her – glanced up from the parchment she was reading beside the fire. "Oh no, I'm good," she said brightly, as if they were talking about something as inconsequential as the weather rather than her ability to defend herself if they were attacked. "If anything bad happens, I'll just blow them up. It's easier."

Lace opened her mouth. Then she closed it. As curious as she was about just what that meant, she couldn't help but think that maybe it was safer not knowing. She'd just let herself be surprised and hope for the best.

If nothing else, it couldn't be any worse than that mess with the Inquisitor and the dragon a few weeks back. _That_ was going to give her nightmares for years.

Instead, she just shrugged. "That sounds like a plan," Lace agreed. "Just make sure I'm not in the line of fire when you do whatever it is you'll do."

If anything, Dagna's smile grew even bigger. Lace honestly hadn't even thought that was possible, but it just went to show her that anything could happen.

"Oh, don't worry, I will," Dagna said cheerfully, setting the parchment in her hands down beside her on the ground. "I haven't accidentally blown anyone up in ages."

Lace's eyebrows went up as she studied the other woman very closely for a moment. She honestly couldn't tell whether or not she was joking or being serious, but she had a strong suspicion that it was the latter.

Definitely not the boring type then.

"I think you're going to fit in well at Skyhold," Lace said slowly.

Dagna blushed, her entire face turning almost as red as her hair. "I hope so," she said, twisting her hands together in her lap. "I can't wait to see what type of work they have for me. Leliana was very, very vague in the message that she sent me, but she said that she thought I'd enjoy it. And she'd probably know."

If anything, Lace's eyebrows went a bit higher. "Leliana?" she repeated. She could count on her fingers just how many people referred to the Nightingale by her actual name. "You make it sound like you know her personally."

"Oh, I do," Dagna said with a slightly too enthusiastic nod. "I haven't seen her in years, but she was with the Warden when they helped get me a place at the Tower. Apparently she's kept close track of me since then, which is only mildly terrifying."

Lace couldn't help but let out a snort of laughter at that, even as she mentally filed away the fact that not only did Dagna know Leliana but she apparently knew the _Hero of Ferelden_ as well. "'Mildly terrifying' is one of the nicer descriptions I've heard for her."

Then she caught a whiff of something burning and quickly turned her attention back to the pot sitting over the fire.

"Does the black smoke mean dinner's ready?" Dagna asked curiously.

*

Lace took the mug that Cabot handed her with a nod. "Thanks," she said. "I'll take another of the same."

He raised his eyebrows at that, but she was already downing the ale he'd handed her before he had a chance to say anything. By the time she finished chugging the entire mug and sat it back down on the bar in front of her, he'd already turned away and was pouring her another one.

She didn't know why so many people complained about him. He was a great bartender.

"I don't want to hear about it," he said dryly as he handed her the second ale.

"Good," Lace said, giving him a shrug as she took it, "because I don't want to talk about it."

Cabot gave her a grimace that almost passed as a smile for him. Almost. Then, without a word, he turned to a pair of mages that had just walked up to the bar. "What do you want?"

Shaking her head, Lace slipped away from the bar and started towards the stairs. She usually found a table down on the ground floor so that she could catch up on the gossip she missed out on while out in the field, but she wasn't particularly in the mood to be around people just then. If it wasn't for the fact that she _was_ in the mood for alcohol, she'd probably be hiding in the quarters that were assigned to her whenever she was actually in Skyhold.

As it was, though, she needed to find a happy medium. And finding a quiet spot upstairs where it wasn't quite as crowded seemed to be the best option just then.

She gave Sutherland a quick nod as she went past him, her gaze quickly drifting over the second floor and taking everything in within seconds. Then she frowned at the lack of empty tables. There was one, over by Sera's room, but she knew from past experience that the odds were high she wouldn't get any peace or quiet if she took that one. With a sigh, she turned towards the stairs that headed up to the third floor and started up them.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Lace stopped before she reached the top. As nice as the kid was, if a bit odd even for the Inquisition's standards, she wasn't particularly in the mood to have Cole in her head pulling out thoughts she'd rather keep to herself. Instead, she plopped down on the stairs themselves and took a long swig of her ale.

It wasn't perfect, but it would work. At least until she could get enough drinks in her to make the thought of being surrounded by other people a little less overwhelming.

Most of the time, Lace liked working for the Inquisition. She didn't regret her choice to join them, not when the other option was staying in the Hinterlands and herding animals or farming or whatever else her family probably preferred that she'd be doing. But sometimes...

Lace's hand slipped into the pouch at her side almost of its own accord, and she couldn't help but run her fingers over the crumpled piece of paper in there. She didn't pull it out. She didn't need to. She'd memorized it by now considering just how many times she'd read it since she'd gotten back to Skyhold that morning and found it waiting for her.

She wasn't even certain why she was so upset about it. It was good news, after all. She should be happy that her sister had gotten married. That she was going to be an aunt in the not-so-far away future. But that was the crux of it, wasn't it? It had been months, and she was just finding out. Growing up, her entire family had all lived less than a day's travel of each other, and now she was finding out important things like marriages and pregnancies months and months after everyone else.

What would be the next thing she'd miss out on?

Lace shook her head, pulling her hand out of her pouch and taking another large drink from her mug. There wasn't any point in sitting there worrying about things she couldn't control. She was one of Nightingale's scouts, and it wasn't as if she was going to give that up anytime soon. It was what it was, and no amount of woolgathering was going to change it.

Besides, she’d have been bored out of her mind if she’d stayed at home, and she damn well knew it.

"Oh! So you're the broken song that Cole was talking about. Or, at least, I assume you are. Does broken song mean anything to you? Because he seemed to think it was important."

It took a fair bit of effort on Lace's part not to jump a foot in the air at the sound of a familiar voice coming from behind her, but she'd gotten a fair bit of practice at not letting something like that obviously startle her over the years. Considering the sheer number of bears that tended to come running at you out of nowhere in the Hinterlands, it was hard not to learn how to go with the flow when it came to things like that. You'd never get far otherwise.

Of course, she normally hadn't just taken a large swig of ale when a bear came running at her out of nowhere either. 

Lace went into a coughing fit, holding up her hand in what she hoped was a gesture easily translated as "it's fine, I'm not dying" as Dagna came down a few more steps before plopping down beside Lace where she was sitting. Considering the lack of obvious concern at her inability to breathe for a good twenty seconds, she assumed her gestures were understandable.

"Sorry!" Dagna said sheepishly. "I didn't mean to startle you. I was asking Cole some questions, what with him being a spirit and all, and then he said something about a broken song on the stairs and disappeared."

Lace managed a weak nod as the ale she'd been drinking finally stopped trying to kill her. "That sounds like him," she agreed. "I have no idea what he means, but that's nothing new."

"Same here," Dagna agreed brightly. "He seemed to think that I should come over here, though, so here I am." She tilted her head a bit, her gaze drifting to the mug in Lace's hand. "I don't usually come to the tavern. Well, not downstairs. I talk with Cole upstairs sometimes. He's very fascinating to study. Should I get a drink? That's what people usually do in a tavern, right? They drink and talk?"

It was impressive just how quickly Lace could feel her bad mood slipping away at the familiar sound of Dagna peppering her with questions. She hadn't really spent all that much time with the arcanist, considering how rarely she tended to be in Skyhold rather than being out in the field, but the other woman tended to seek her out whenever she was there for a few days.

She was surprisingly good at making Lace smile.

"Most people tend to get drinks, yes," Lace agreed. She looked at her own mug, grimaced at just how little was left in it, and then downed the rest.

"And a table?" Dagna asked, her eyes darting towards the still empty one by Sera's quarters that was barely visible from the angle they were at.

Lace sighed even as she nodded. "You grab the table and I'll get the drinks?" she suggested. "Just be ready to duck if a swarm of insects comes flying out at us."

The smile that Dagna shot her could have lit up the night sky. Lace was fairly certain of it.

*

If Lace had her way, she was _never_ going to let the Inquisitor talk her into taking a noncombatant into the field ever again. No matter who it was or how important the information they were looking for could be to the Inquisition's cause.

"I've never fallen off a cliff before," Dagna said, her teeth chattering so much that Lace could barely understand her. "It was really quite exciting once I realized that I wasn't dead."

Lace made a show of rolling her eyes as she pulled Dagna a little closer to her and wrapped her cloak even more tightly around them. Even after drying off and changing into her spare clothes, Dagna was clearly still half-frozen.

"That wasn't a cliff," she said, trying to keep her voice as light as possible in an attempt to hide the concern. "That was an incline. And you didn't fall off of it. You rolled down it."

It had been a very steep incline with icy cold water at the bottom, but still. An incline. If Lace kept reminding herself of that, she'd be much less likely to remember just how panicked she'd felt in those thirty seconds before Dagna's head had popped up out of the stream.

"And no one has ever pulled me out of a raging river before," Dagna continued. "It was very brave."

Lace sighed even as the corners of her mouth threatened to turn upwards into a bit of a smile. "It was a stream, Dagna," she said. "Not a river."

Dagna continued as if she hadn't said anything. "I'm very lucky that you came with me instead of the Inquisitor," she said, nodding decisively. "I don't think they would have reacted nearly as quickly. I've heard the stories about what happened in the Hissing Wastes."

Lace couldn't help but chuckle at the utter ridiculousness of that statement, which was apparently the reaction Dagna had been waiting for based on the smile she shot her. It was a very chattering type of smile, considering her current half-frozen state, but still. It was clearly a smile.

"Next time, watch where you're going," she said, trying her best to keep her voice casual. Judging by the way Dagna's smile faded a bit at her words, she suspected that she hadn't done quite as good a job as she'd intended. "I won't always be there to watch your back."

Dagna tilted her head at that, and she looked at Lace like she was some type of strange artifact whose mysteries she was trying to unravel. It was honestly a bit unnerving, even though it wasn't the first time Lace had noticed her looking at her with that particular expression on her face.

Except then, without another word, Dagna leaned in and kissed her.

It wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, barely more than a quick peck on the lips before Dagna pulled away again. Her lips were like ice against Lace's, her impromptu swim in the not-quite-frozen stream clearly taking its toll. Lace's own lips had probably burned like fire against her skin.

"Of course you will," Dagna said matter-of-factly, as certain as if it was the word of the Maker. Or the Ancestors. Or the Stone. Or whatever she believed in, coming from Orzammar as she did.

There were a thousand different things that Lace could say to that, most of them protests of some type or another. But just then? She couldn't think of a single one. Instead, she just stared at Dagna for a long moment before letting a hesitant smile make its way onto her face.

"Well, if you insist," Lace said slowly, taking in the just-as-hesitant smile on Dagna's face, "then who am I to argue?"

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/settiai)


End file.
